Footfall (51 page)

“Africa’s so divided you can find a group to cooperate with anything if it will put them on top,” Ransom said.

“Unity,” Sherry said. “They’ll unite us—”

“-even if it kills us,” Reynolds finished.

“Here’s to Unity!” Sherry lifted her glass in a toast.

Curtis raised a clenched fist and sang off-key. “And the Inter-nation-ale unites the hu-man race.”

Reynolds leaped on it. “More than the human race. All the sapient races. Thinkers of the galaxy, unite! You have nothing I lose but your chains.”

“Down with arboreal chauvinism!” Sherry shouted.

“And you want these guys to cheer up the President?” Jack Clybourne’s voice was dull and serious in the general laughter. “They don’t care who wins!”

“Hey!” Ransom protested.

“You didn’t see it,” Clybourne said. “I did. A huge cargo barge stuffed full of people. Just ordinary people from Kansas. Men, women, kids. Dogs. Dolls. All mashed into jelly. If you’d see it, you wouldn’t talk like this!”

“We’ve seen it,” Joe Ransom said.

“They’ve seen your ship,” Carol said. “Your ship, and the bodies in Kansas, they’ve all of them seen all of that.”

“Films? If you’d been there, if you’d smelled it, you’d hate the snouts with your minds and guts!”

“Come off it,” Curtis said.

“Hey, we’re all on the same side,” Carol said. “Come on. Have a drink.”

“Maybe we’ve all had too much,” Sherry said.

“You don’t really think we’ll surrender?” Ransom asked.

“I won’t,” Clybourne said.

“Well, we won’t either. Our problem is that we’re in here. Outside we might have something to do, some way to help rebuild the country. In here we’re useless.”

“They also serve,” Curtis muttered, “who only stand and wait. That’s our problem, Jack. We’re supposed to plan for failure. What can we do if Archangel doesn’t work? And every damn one of us knows that Archangel is it! Damn right all our eggs are in that basket. There isn’t another basket and there won’t be more eggs. So here we sit, waiting …”

“And the longer we wait,” Ransom said, “the longer it takes to finish Archangel, the better the chances the snouts will find out about it. Or drop a rock on Bellingham for the pure hell of it.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to you, Mr. Clybourne. I just hope you got all the CBs.”

“There’s another problem,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Yeah?”

“That message inviting us to discuss surrender terms. It was received here fine.”

“So?—” Ransom prompted.

Jenny felt the beginnings of a chill at the base of her spine.

“It wasn’t heard ten miles away,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Tightbeam!” Reynolds said.

“Tightbeam, direct to here,” Curtis added. “It took you a week to find out?”

“Direct to here?” Clybourne looked puzzled. “A message for the President sent here—”

“And nowhere else,” Ransom said.

“We’ve got to get the President out of here!” Clybourne shouted.

“In due time,” Admiral Carrell said. “However they got their information—”

“Quislings,” Curtis muttered.

“Perhaps. However they learned, they have had a week and more to act on their knowledge. They have not done so.”

“But we’re safe here,” Carol protested. “Aren’t we?”

“Against what?” Curtis demanded. “Nothing’s safe from another Foot.”

“They won’t do that,” Sherry protested.

“How do you know?” Clybourne demanded.

“Harpanet. They don’t attack the top leadership of a herd. If humans surrender …”

“Which we won’t,” Ransom said. He raised his glass. Curtis clinked glasses with him.

“If we did,” Sherry continued. “The President would probably become a high official, an advisor to their herdmaster. It’s the way they work. They won’t kill the President if they can help it. It would be like starting a court trial by shooting the other fellow’s lawyer. They just don’t do things that way.”

“They don’t offer conditional surrender terms, either,” Curtis said. “They’re learning.”

This was the heart of Michael. The bridge looked like an unfinished Star Trek movie set. Around the walls were large viewscreens and control consoles, with acceleration couches made of webbing at each station, and two large command chairs in the center. Scattered through it all were wooden desks, tables, and drafting tables, nearly all covered with blueprints.

Some of the wall screens were split, blueprint at the bottom and camera view of that area at the top. As Harry watched, one of the screens flashed, and a new drawing appeared at its bottom.

“Done, by God!” Max Rohrs stood. “Harry, break out the champagne!”

“Right on!”

General Gillespie rose from his seat at one of the wooden desks. “Are we really done, Max?”

“Well … Ed, we both know this ship won’t ever be finished, we’ll be making changes right up to launch time, but yeah, we’re done. You can tell the President that as of tomorrow noon we can launch on twenty-four hours notice.”

Harry retrieved champagne from a small portable refrigerator. It would have to go, along with the desks and tables and file cabinets. It was good champagne, Mum’s. There were a dozen crystal glasses in the refrigerator too. “How many glasses, General?” Harry asked.

“Three just now,” Gillespie said.

Harry worried the cork out and let it fly to the ceiling. He poured and handed glasses out, then lifted one. “A willing foe, and sea room.”

Gillespie made a face. “I’d as soon the snouts weren’t willing at all. I just want to win.”

Max Rohrs said, “Ed, we’ve just worked a miracle.” He went over to the calendar and drew a ring around the date. “A real live one hundred percent miracle.” He lifted his glass. “So God bless us, there’s none like us. You too, Harry. You were a damn big help.”

“Thanks.”

Gillespie poured Harry’s glass full again. “Lot to do yet,” Gillespie said. “First, we have to bring in the ferryboats. Tomorrow morning we’ll send all the dependents, and everybody but the launch and flight crews, over to Port Angeles.”

Harry dropped into one of the command chairs, dodging TV screens. “What about the rest of Bellingham?”

“We wait on that one.”

“Yeah, if the snouts see there’s nobody here … going to be tough, though. What do we do?”

“We don’t do anything,” Gillespie said. “We’ll give the sheriff as much notice as we can. You don’t need to worry, Harry. We’ve got speedboats for the last-minute crew.”

“Sure — how far away would you have to be?”

“A couple of miles if you have shelter. At Hiroshima the damage at five miles wasn’t too bad. Of course we’re setting off a lot more than one bomb.” Gillespie drained his glass.

“Of course the safest place is in the ship,” Max Rohrs said.

“That’ll be all military people—”

“Well, but some will be more military than others,” Rohrs said. “I’m going.”

“You?” Harry almost laughed.

Max didn’t laugh. “Yes. Chief Warrant Officer Maximilian Rohrs, Damage Control Officer, at your service. Who else knows as much about the way this ship is put together?”

“Well, Harry does,” Ed Gillespie said.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Rohrs came over and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “Don’t I remember you doing some entertaining in the Chuckanut? Something about it wasn’t your regular line of work, your regular work was hero?”

“Something like that,” Gillespie agreed. “So. Want to take up your regular occupation again?”

Harry tried to stand up, but Rohrs’ heavy hand was on his shoulder. “Now hear this. I am not an astronaut.”

“Neither am I,” Max Rohrs said.

“I didn’t tell you to go! And, Max, you and the General designed this ship. If—”

“Have some more champagne, Harry.”

“A pleasure. Look, I’ve met most of the crew. You’re not really filling it out at the last second, are you?”

“No. I thought this over fairly carefully,” General Gillespie said. “What is it that those kids don’t know? That stuff shouldn’t be allowed to get warm, Harry.”

Harry drank. Gillespie said, “They know the ship. They know what’s most likely to happen to it. They’re dedicated. They know how to be tired and hurting and still keep going because we taught them that, pretty much the same way I was taught. But, Harry, it was us making them hurt, and they knew we could make it.

“Harry, you had a back problem. You got yourself a book of back exercises, and you used it while you crossed the country on a motorcycle, and got beat up on by the fithp, and lost two women and you still kept going, and all to keep a promise. And you hadn’t even promised to do that! I want my dedicated astronauts and want you too. I don’t know who’ll fall apart up there.”

“And what is it I want?” Harry inquired politely.

The General half closed his eyes. He seemed in no hurry to answer. Rohrs finished his glass and poured again. He was watching the screens.

The screens hadn’t changed in several minutes. One, from a camera on the dome wall, showed Michael in full. Two great towers stood on the curve of the hemispherical shell, with cannon showing beneath the lip, aimed inward. Four smaller towers flanked them. A brick-shaped structure rose above them. The Brick was much less massive than the Shell, but its sides were covered with spacecraft: tiny gunships, and four Shuttles with tanks but no boosters. The Brick’s massive roof ran beyond the flanks to shield the Shuttles and gunships.

Rohrs said, “The biggest spaceship ever built by Man. Done by God.”

“And I’m done too,” Harry said.

— 

Gillespie said, “If we win this. If. We’ll kill a lot of snouts and the rest will surrender. Thousands of snouts, all trying to join what our Threat Team has started calling the Climbing Fithp. Thousands of snouts — sane snouts, mostly — all learning to be human. Who will want to learn the name of the man who first captured a snout?”

“Pour me some more of that,” said Harry.

Jenny winked at Jack, then went into the balcony office. The Situation Room down below was crowded. Every console held a group, all the regular duty-crew plus most of the Threat Team, and anyone else who could think of a good reason to be there.

“Come in, Colonel,” Admiral Carrell said. “Your station is here.” He indicated a table facing the big screens beyond the glass wall. The table held a small switchboard and computer terminal. Jenny put on the headset with its microphone and single headphone, and pushed buttons.

“Operations, Colonel Walters.”

“Control here, communications test.”

“Roger. I read you five by five.” Another button.

“Dreamer Fithp here,” a voice said.

“Control here. Communications test.”

“Fine.”

She pushed other buttons. Finally she nodded to Admiral Carrell. “Communications checked out, sir. The link with Michael has a lot of static.”

“It will probably get worse. All right.” Carrell went to the door. “Mr. Clybourne, please tell the President that everything is ready, and he can join us whenever he likes. Colonel, begin Operation Moby Dick.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny touched another button. On the floor below a siren wailed and red lights flashed. “Harpoon, this is Gimlet. Let fly!”

They could hear the cheers through the glass wall. Then the Situation Room fell silent. Crews hunched over consoles.

One of the situation screens showed the locations of the Invader Mother Ship and all the digit ships they could locate. The mother ship and sixteen digit ships were in geosync over Africa. They posed no danger yet. The moon was just setting; snout installations there would see nothing. Africa was wrapped in night. For whatever it was worth, the Invaders would start from their sleep to find themselves attacked.

Eight digit ships were in twelve-hour orbits, evenly distributed around the Earth, and three of these passed to east, center, and west of the United States every twelve hours. One would be passing over the South Pole when Michael launched. The others would have to be distracted.

Another screen showed all the effective missiles remaining under U.S. control. Lights blinked and colored lines flowed across the screens as the main battle computer matched missiles with Invader targets.

General Toland came in. “All ready at my end,” he said.

Not that the Army has much to do — unless the snouts start dropping rocks at random!

“Good.” Carrell stood at the balcony window, his eyes fastened on the screens below. After a moment, General Toland sat at one of the desks.

One screen faded, then was replaced by a map of the South Atlantic. A bright red line rose from the ocean and arced toward Johannesburg.

“God, what if it really hits?” Toland said to no one.

“It won’t,” Carrell said.

Other lines arced upward from the South Atlantic. One rose straight up: the EMP bomb. Then a bright blue ring sprang up to surround that area.

“We’ve lost communications with Ethan Allen,” Jenny reported. “The Nathaniel Greene is launching now.” The EMP bomb bloomed into a red patch, wide of Earth’s arc. More lines sprang up, this time from farther south, almost directly below the Cape of Good Hope. After a few moments a blue circle appeared there, too.

“No communications with Nathaniel Greene,” Jenny said. “Or anywhere else for the next few hours. We got our electromagnetic pulse.” The room seethed with static.

The office door opened. Jack Clybourne ushered the President in. General bland stood. Jenny saw him, but remained seated.

“Good afternoon,” President Coffey said. “Continue with your duties.” He sat at the large desk in the middle of the room.

“Actually, we have very little to do,” Admiral Carrell said. “The tough work was planning this. Now it either works or it doesn’t.”

Reassuring bullshit, Jenny thought. No battle plan ever works.

Seventeen digit ships destroyed in the war. We can’t find three. Assume one destroyed, unreported, and two on the ground in Africa, where they can’t rise in time. Can we get that lucky? Another of the battle screens flashed to show Georgia and South Carolina. A network of red lines leaped upward toward the digit ships patrolling in low orbit.

Ten minutes went past. The red lines began rapidly to wink out. Red blotches appeared south of Atlanta.

“They’re damned fast,” Toland muttered.

“Yes. Too fast,” Admiral Carrell agreed. He turned to the President. “We’d hoped to keep them distracted for half an hour or more.”

“When does Michael go up?” the President asked.

“In eighty minutes,” Admiral Carrell said.

“God help the people in Bellingham,” President Coffey muttered.

God help us all.

“God, Miranda, we can’t keep this up. I’m supposed to be on duty!”

“So you are.” She made a point of buttoning her blouse as she moved away from him to the passenger door of the squad car, and pretended to be interested in the sparse scenery of the Lummi Indian Reservation. “All right, you’ll just have to take me — home—”

“Well, but not just—” He rolled over in the seat, prepared to follow.

“All units, all units, proceed with Big Tango, proceed with Big Tango,” the radio blared.

Leigh sagged back, stunned.

“What is it?” Miranda demanded. His look frightened her.

“I don’t even know where to start!”

“Start what, damn you?”

He was buttoning buttons, fumbling it. “It’s — we’re supposed to evacuate the city. Everybody within five miles of the harbor.”

“Five miles?”

“Your place isn’t in the zone,” Deputy Young said. “You’re almost six miles out. But the Rez is.” He leaned forward and started the cruiser. “And I guess you’re riding with me. Miranda, how the hell do I get a bunch of Indians to leave their homes?”

“Tell them why. Tell me why, Leigh!”

“I don’t know! They told me that when Big Tango started we have one hour, one frigging hour to get everybody out of their houses and away.” He put the car in gear. “So here we go, not that it will do any good.”

It didn’t look like an Indian reservation. It looked more like a rural slum punctuated by occasional suburban houses. There was only one paved road. Leigh drove along it and spoke at intervals through the loud speaker mounted on top of the police car.

“Hi! This is Leigh Young. I have bad news. The aliens going to bomb Bellingham. You have about half an hour to the hell out of here. Drive, ride bikes, run, walk, do anything you can, but get the hell away from Bellingham Harbor.” He drove around the paved loop.

There was a numbness in Miranda’s brain. John Fox expected something, something he wouldn’t talk about. What can I do? Give Leigh half an hour to get the Indians moving, but then he damned well better take me home so I can tell Dad!

They were at the end of the loop. There were speedboats in the harbor, all racing southwest and away. Headed for Port Angles? Escaping. Escaping what?

Leigh was driving back into the loop. “Run for the hills,” his amplified voice blared. “Get out any way you can: foot, horse, car; don’t take anything you don’t value more than life. Don’t look back because the glare will burn your eyes out.”

Already there were cars moving the other way. “Some of them listened,” Miranda said. “Leigh, we have to go warn Dad if the snouts are going to bomb us!”

“They’re not going to bomb us.”

“Huh?”

“I made that up,” Leigh said.

“Then why are we doing this?”

“Damfino.”

“Ask the Sheriff.”

“Miranda, I already asked him, and he wouldn’t tell us.”

“Ask now! He has to tell us now!”

“Well …”

Miranda took the microphone from its hook and handed it to him. “Go on, ask. What harm can it do?”

“Well, all right.” Leigh keyed the microphone.

“Dispatcher.”

“Is the Sheriff there?”

“He’s busy.”

“I have to talk with him.”

“One moment.”

“Sheriff Lafferty here. That you, Young?”

“Yes, sir. Sheriff, I’m on the Rez. Most of the Indians are moving on, but some aren’t. Isn’t there anything I can tell them that’ll make them move out?”

“Tell them they’ll get killed if they stay.”

“I did. I said the snouts are going to bomb Bellingham.”

“Snouts bomb us! That’s a good one. Leigh, we’re going to bomb ourselves, there’s going to be atom bombs…”

The radio dissolved in static.

“What the hell?” Leigh tuned up and down. “Buzz saws. Like we were being jammed.”

“Maybe we are,” Miranda said.

“What?”

“Leigh, what did he mean, bomb ourselves?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either, but why would the Army jam your radio? Leigh, I’m scared.”

So far, so good. Jenny watched the big wall screens with satisfaction. “M minus fifty-five minutes, and counting,” she announced. “Thank you,” Admiral Carrel! acknowledged.

“Melon daiquiri,” President Coffey muttered.

“Sir?” Carrell asked.

“Nothing. Admiral, I have a good feeling about this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t.”

“Mr. President, they say that Admiral Jellicoe at Jutland was the only man in the world who could have lost World War One in a single afternoon.”

“Oh. And we …?”

“Can lose something more than that,” Carrell said.

“Of course you’re right.” The door opened to admit a mess corporal with a tray of coffee. Outside the door were half a dozen military personnel, plus Jack Clybourne, who was doing his best not to look through the door and across the office so that he could see the big battle screens on the floor below. The President grinned. “Mr. Clybourne?”

“Sir.”

“Let Sergeant Maihey’s people act like doorkeepers. Come in and watch the action.”

“Sir?”

“Come in. You’ve earned a ringside seat.”

“But … well, thank you, sir.” Clybourne stood against one wall.

He blends into it. Like wallpaper, Jenny thought. She turned to wink at him. There was a buzz in her headset.

“Control. Gimlet.”

“Gimlet, this is Harpoon. We have a security breach. We have a security breach. This went out on police radio air four minutes ago. I play the tapes now…”

“Launch now,” General Toland said.

“There are people in Bellingham,” the President said. “A lot of them.”

“All right, so it’s hard on Bellingham! Launch! Colonel, tell them to prepare.”

“Yes, sir.” Jenny spoke into the microphone. “Prepare for launch in five minutes. Launch in five minutes.”

More sirens blared on the floor below.

“Admiral?” the President asked.

Admiral Carrell put his fingertips together and looked acros their tops at the situation maps. “Give me a minute.”

“Not much more than that,” said the General.

“All right. First, the timing is terrible. We’d be launching straight up at Bogie Two, and we didn’t hurt those digit ships enough.”

“If they drop rocks on Michael, we’ve had it!” Bland shouted.

“Yes.” Carrell glanced at his watch. “What are we afraid of? A laser can’t hurt Michael. A meteor takes time …”

“It could be on its way now!”

“And ready to hit atmosphere. All right. I say we … wait. Get ready to launch on ten seconds notice. Wait the full hour if we can, but if Gillespie sees a light in the sky he’ll launch. A meteor would flare at fifty miles up, and come in at a slant at five to six miles per second. We’d be twenty seconds in the air when it hit. Michael would survive.”

“Michael can blow Bogie Two out of the sky,” the General said. “It’s all alone. We won’t see another digit ship for an hour.”

“We have a plan,” Admiral Carrell said.

“And if we stick with it, we lose! Mr. President, you’re betting everything on this.”

“General, I’m aware that it’s important.”

“We have to fight the damn digit ships anyway! Go now.”

“And kill everyone in Bellingham,” President Coffey said.

“Better Bellingham than the whole damn human race!”

“Oh, Jesus.” President Coffey stared at the situation screens. “Admiral Carrell, you’re my naval expert. Take command.”

“Yes, sir. Colonel Crichton, get me direct communications with General Gillespie.”

“Sir.” The first three lines she tried were filled with static. “General Gillespie, sir.”

“Ed, this is Thor Carrell.”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”

“There’s been a possible security leak. Your local sheriff used his radio.”

“Is that why there’s jamming? We can’t talk to our own MPs.”

“That’s it. General, you’re to make ready for instant launch. Watch the skies. The first glimmer up there, and you go. It’s your ship, as of now.”

“Acknowledged.”

President Coffey looked significantly at the Admiral.

“Mr. President,” Carrell said.

“I won’t take your time,” Coffey said. “Godspeed, General.”

The sirens were still wailing on the floor below.

General Toland was still frowning. “All right, God damn it, we’ll do it your way.” He turned to Jenny. “Colonel, get me the MP commander in Bellingham. I want that sheriff’s ass in a sling.”

“General.”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“Have your MPs do what they can for the people in Bellingham. They’re Americans too.”

“Yes, sir.”

John Fox heard it first.

There was high wind with a few raindrops in it. Fox was turning the compost heap. He’d managed to make this his own territory; nobody else would fool with it. His pitchfork probed, and he worked around the denser mass he sensed, to keep Roger hidden. Bones showed suddenly, not clean yet — a foot. Fox grimaced an picked up a pitchforkful of compost.

He stopped, cocked his head. There was a sound in the wind. Motors.

Fox placed his forkful to cover the bones deep. Then he moved briskly toward the house. He opened the door and shouted at the first human figure he saw. “Navy coming back. Alert everyone. I’ll be at the gate.”